Police close to breakthrough in Chidambaram blast case

The police are following certain definite leads in the Chidambaram blast case and are likely to achieve a breakthrough in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, Mohanram, 35, who has been grievously injured in the blast, has lost vision.

Since he is in trauma not much of details could be gathered from him.

However, the police are pursuing other concrete clues to zero in on those who assembled the “improvised explosive device.”

Police sources told The Hindu that at least four persons might have been engaged in the task of readying low-intensity explosives.

On Saturday, an explosion occurred on the ground floor of a rented portion of a housing complex, shattering the peace of Mariappa Nagar in Chidambaram.

One person bleeding all over was immediately rushed to a private hospital by the accomplices who later gave the police the slip. On a complaint from Oothankoil Village Administrative Officer Muthunayagam, the police have registered a case.

It is reliably learnt that the police have detained Arul Prasad, 34, a technical hand employed in the engineering faculty of Annamalai University. Prasad has rented the flat from Panneerselvam, a retired professor of botany at the university.

Gang rivalry reason

Preliminary investigation revealed that gang rivalry and the thirst to avenge the past misdeeds seemed to be the motive.

The sources said it was not a “bomb-hurling case,” as reported in a section of the press, but an explosive-assembling process that went haywire.